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| 096 - A rather extraordinary freehand stripped blackthorn staff Maximum overall length 55" / 1.4m Medium thickness and weight. | 
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| It's all Mike's fault! He wanted me to make him a blackthorn knobstick. I
thought I had just the piece for the job - a long medium-weight shank with a
big chunk of root on the end. But when I took it down from where it was hanging
in the garage, I found there were some deep splits in the end-block. This
needn't be a problem, though; it was a big piece of wood and there ought to be
enough material there once I had cut away the split parts. But... once I had started whittling away I found there was a lot of soft rotten
stuff in there. So I started chiselling and scraping that away to see how much
good material would be left. Now, one thing about blackthorn is that when
moisture penetrates the wood, the sapwood may go rotten but the dark heartwood
does just the opposite. It goes rock hard and turns a deep purple colour. Accordingly, as I removed the unusable material it revealed some lovely colours
underneath. I worked away at it until I was left with just the good stuff. This
formed a strange contorted shape, and rather than destroy this, I simply worked
around the natural features, working as many of them as I could into
alternative comfortable hand grips. The result looks pretty weird, but there
are many different ways to hold it in either hand, making it ideal for hiking.
There are holds for going uphill, downhill, on the level, wading, probing,
leaning and waving the stick around. You name it, this stick can do it - it's
even got a little hook so you can hang it up, open gates, pull aside branches
and do all the other things you might conceivably want to use a stick for. It's
the stick user's equivalent of the Swiss Army knife or Leatherman tool! |
 
| There were a couple of old splits in the bark, and in typical blackthorn
fashion the sapwood had pulled back around them, exposing the heartwood to the
elements. This is always worth investigating with a sharp instrument! Having
opened up the splits and smoothed them over, I filled the deeper recesses with
epoxy resin to prevent any further ingress of moisture and removed the bark
from the rest of the shank.
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| Here are a couple of close-up shots of the handle, showing the lovely colours
inside. I feel it has a certain bovine quality about it when viewed at the right angle. But think carefully before agreeing with me - I am quite barking mad, you know! | 
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| The splits and holes. Don't worry, these aren't going to cause any problems;
they're just the natural response of the growing wood to life's little
irritations. They've done their work in protecting the tree from infection and
rot, and now the wood is dried out they won't be coming to life again. |  
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| By popular request, I usually sign my work these days. Ordinarily I don't do
this until the stick has been cut to length for a customer, for a couple of
reasons. One, obviously, is that since I like to put the signature in an out of
the way place near the bottom of the shank, there could be a problem if the
stick is purchased by a very short person! The second problem is that if I
should want to enter a stick in a BSG show, the rules require that there must
be no mark on it to identify the maker (a bit of a joke really, since many of
the entries will have been seen before in countless previous shows and
everyone, especially the judges, will know exactly who made them!). On this occasion, it's not the sort of stick anyone would want significantly
shortened, but it is the sort of stick a show judge wouldn't be able to make
head nor tail of. So no problems there. Below I have attempted to illustrate some of the different holds available to
the user, but I am sure there are plenty more to be revealed. And it's not easy
for a right-handed, left-eyed person to hold a stick in their right hand while
operating a right-handed, right-eyed camera with the left hand!! (Or vice-versa
if it comes to that). |
 
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| This staff, despite its strange appearance, is eminently practical for the
serious walker but might also appeal to a follower of the Old Religion for
ceremonial purposes. |
SOLD |